Pushing Carts Like It's Our Job

Dear Arrowists,

It is with incredible pride and joy -- Yes, incredible! We almost cannot believe ourselves that the amount of glowing, pulsing, gold-dipped pride and joy we feel is credible! -- that we descend from the mount of editorial labors for Issue No. 5 -- out 1/1/12! -- to announce our nominations for the Pushcart.

They are as follows, in no particular order (not even alphabetical):

“Hi” by Steven Karl and Angela Veronica Wong

“Little Ornaments” by Kerri Webster

“The Jaundiced Deer” by Joseph P. Wood

“Accessible” by Joe Milazzo

“Walrus Disgrace” by Kellie Wells

“Sweeping Elegy for Native Grass” by Caroline Berry Klocksiem

Thank you to these and all of our contributors, this year and in all years. Super Arrow continues to be the thing we hoped it would be: a place for exciting, rigorous artmarkers to show their stuff, to be digitally linked, to extend creative welcomes.

On Birthdays & on Holidays, We Think of All of You So Happily & Sigh...

Super Arrow

A Map's End Is Just the Edge of the Next Map

Dearest Arrows,

We are coming to the end of the submissions cycle for Issue 5. BUT, and this is an important exception, we will continue to keep submissions open, year-round. We will take a bit longer to get to the submissions made nearer to publication dates (midwinter and midsummer) but will get to them as possible. There has been a lovely embrace of submissions this time ‘round and we will offer you a small post-holiday packet of wonder right around New Year’s, wrapped in brown paper and tied with a glittering length of digital twine.

You have just a few more days to be considered for Issue 5, whose cycle ends on November 15, at midnight, your time. Submit, and spread the word. We would like to include more visual art this year, and also maps. Do consider spreading the word, like wildfire, as possible, please, sirs and madams.

It snowed here today for the second day in a row. We’ve been ill and busy and lofted only by the magic in our Submishmash – we mean Submittable – box. Well, lofted by this, and also by various autumnal squash dishes.

Thank you all for your open arms of beckonings and look-heres.

We’ll be with you shortly, again, and for a long time.

Yours in the Northerly Midwestern Region of Industrial Ruin and Drying Fields,

Super Arrow

If Links Were Lungs, Our Love at Ultraviolet Speeds

Writers, Surveyors, Flautists, Friends,

Hello again. We may have already mentioned to you our plans to somersault northward for a season, for two, or for good. We may have already mentioned to you our current obsession with maps. Indeed, in our spare time we have been tumbling all over them like some serious, abstract, and intellectual game of Twister.

But when we steady, we find ourselves at the other side of an issue and again in a bright season. We're home--a map's most perfect use.

And there beneath the nodding trees in the yard we have been laureled with many generous gifts of submissions. Please don't forget to add your own leaves, at Submishmash.

It has been a good summer for our friends. Below you will find many links to the publications, projects, and goings on of some of our contributors from the last month or two. As Einstein certainly never said, "Enjoy the featured genius."

• Kyle Winkler’s “Teratology” earned a very special, hidden, third thumb's up from the Million Writers Award judges for being canaveralous but totally ineligible. You can find "Tetralogy" in Conjunctions. Kyle also showed up in The Collagist. Also, be sure to keep up with Kyle's latest project, "Florida Loves Little Girls," a serial novel for the digital age.
• Kerri Webster announced that her 2nd full-length collection, Grand & Arsenal, will be published by University of Iowa Press in 2012. You can read Kerri's Super Arrow 4 contributions here or check her out in the Boston Review.
• Tamiko Beyer wrote and fundraised her ass off to benefit the New York Writers Coalition. She simultaneously appeared in Sweet 3.3.
• Kellie Wells took 3rd in the Puerto del Sol 2011 fiction contest. A chapter of Kellie's newest novel is available here.
• Roxane Gay lent her talents as an essayist to the debut issue of Flywheel. Likewise Freerange Nonfiction. Also, Roxane's short story "The Myth of Fingerprints" was published by Used Furniture Review.
• Brian Oliu's So You Know It's Me (video trailer--seriously, watch it: http://vimeo.com/25118401) debuted from Tiny Hardcore Press to uniform praise, acclaim, and jubilation. He also toured the country, remixed Aubrey Hirsch's Third Coast short "A Florist's Encyclopedia" for Zine Scene, and helped devastated Tuscaloosans overcome a tornado strike via the ebook Tuscaloosa Runs This. Then, we think, he slept.
• The Wigleaf Top Fifty winked at Colin Basset's story "What Will Happen" from Super Arrow 2.
• The Summer issue of jmww featured two Super Arrow alums, Adam W. Peterson and Gabriel Blackwell.
• Issue #4 of Arch contained two poems from J.A. Gaye. His work also showed up in the freshest iteration of DIAGRAM.
• Ditto on the DIAGRAM for Joseph P. Wood.
• Super Arrow 3 collaborators Seth McKelvey & Chelsea Rice announced a new online journal, S/WORD. Submissions season: open.
• A new poem from Jeremy Allan Hawkins is available in issue #48 of Hayden's Ferry Review. You can also read an interview with Jeremy on PANK's blog and check out the digital album he released.

That's all for now. If there's ever any news you think we'd like to hear, be sure to shoot us an email, tweet, or Facebook message.

Your Berry-Stainedest,

Super Arrow

Map Scaling & Other Summer Stories

Dearest Archers,

We've been busy and flushed, surging from our deep midwestern home to our new northern midwestern homes, as if the impinging heat drives us that way. At this rate we'll be in Canada by nightfall.

A few important notes, with little links attached:

1) Issue No. 4 went live last week. It is spectacular and includes: Chris Malcomb, Jay Milazzo, Kellie Wells, Adam Peterson, Alec Hershman, Steven Karl, Angela Veronica Wong, Kerri Webster, Joseph P. Wood, Brandon Anschultz, Kate Brandt, Megafortress, and a whole passel of Issue No. 3 contributors making an anonymous, persona-laden, happy, happy mess of things.

2) Submissions are open! Easy-peasy online manager here, at Submishmash. (Ed. Note: someone on Twitter -- Maybe Issue No. 3's Elisa Gabbert? We're not sure... -- wrote "submishSMASH" and now we can't stop inserting that "s.")

3) The Assignment for Issue No. 5's FOLIO -- "From Here to There" -- has to do with MAPS. Read more here.

4) We have, all this time, been tumblring. It is a quiet editorial collage of things. Follow us if you would like. We would like that.

Now we're off to chisel small pictograms into the sides of the oldest buildings in our new towns. Making a mark, right off. Metaphorically, of course. And not so anyone would notice much.

Sweetly & Newly,
Super Arrow

A Wide Yard with Many Blossoms

It is May, dear ones. It is that great time of year -- the time of tulips and mothers, of rollerskates, elastic days, and the delicate tucking, folding, and stowing of your favorite National Poetry Month sweater vest.

And if you're anything like us, May is the time when you look to your bottle of Roundup in its squirty little eye and say, "No! I will not foul my garden with your foul, foul chemicals!" and then dash a little something more into your lemonade and sip, and sip, and read, and maybe have a nap.

It is in honor of this yearly tradition that we debut our newest blog utility: a post where we do all the roundup for you, so you can laze and learn with minimal effort as the days lengthen pleasantly.

• First off, J.A. Tyler's Super Arrow 3 story "All These Violent Children" was chosen as a Million Writers Notable Story. You can see all of the notable stories here.
• Jeremy Allan Hawkins, from Issue 3's FOLIO on collaboration, showed up in PANK the other day. You can read four of his poems then go check out his neat-o website.
• Roxane Gay will be taking part in the Quickies bi-monthly reading series in Chicago next week. Make sure to tell thefacebook.com that you'll be in attendance by RSVPing here. You can also read a short retrospective on the the Pine-Sol Lady that she wrote for Thought Catalog. Roxane was originally part of Issue 1.
• Jay Thompson won the triple crown (we think--we're not so sure what that is) by debuting two poems in Jellyfish, one in the new H_NGM_N, and three in Propeller. And remember, there are always wonders and wiseries to be found at his blog.
• Brian Oliu, another Issue 3 collaborator of great fame and fortune, has a book available for the advance buying and the soon-reading. It bears its title "So You Know It's Me" admirably well, and you can obtain it in its many forms directly from Tiny Hardcore Press.
• Tamiko Beyer, also from the Issue 3 FOLIO ranks, just won Lantern Review's National Poetry Month Prompt contest. To harry the prompt yourself, mozy on over to the Lantern Review Blog.

We hope that holds you over for a while. Keeping track of our contributors feels at times like watching dozens of talented bears ride motorcycles along a series of high wires stretching the width of a continent. How can we keep our eyes on all of those charming and determined brows at once? We will miss something, we will. Which is to say to these fine contributors: continue to keep us posted, for the sake of our happy yet jangled gaze!

And speaking of instant dissemination--to get all kinds of updates like this, plus submission/assignment info, and brief notes about snacks, follow fast our winged tweets. We alight most often at twitter.com/super_arrow.

Meanwhile, in the Arrow tunnels beneath the garden, we watch the submissions pile contract into a small sheaf. Issue No. 4 will be up in June: proper beach reading for the brainy arty set, natch. Excuse us as we prepare our mole eyes for sunlight.

Art from above, below, and sideways,
Super Arrow

Chatbot Persona Series, Vol. 6: 20Q

 

And here is a Sunday afternoon wheedle-a-while-away, artificial intelligence style. 20Q was designed by Robin Burgener and works like Clever or Cheer Up, but with less cursing and “text speak.” It relies on something called -- most darlingly -- folk taxonomy. See the image at the bottom of the entry to coo. 

You already know the answer, Quivers. But isn’t it the journey? (It is.)

 

Q: Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Unknown, Other?

A: Other.

Q: Is it hard?

A: Sometimes.

Q: Can it make a sound?

A: Sometimes.

Q: Is it larger than a microwave oven?

A: Sometimes.

Q: Does it open?

A: Sometimes.

Q: Is it a specific type?

A: No.

Q: Can you get milk from it?

A: No.

Q: Can it be washed?

A: Sometimes.

Q: Does it have one or more wheels?

A: No.

Q: Do you open and close it?

A: Yes.

Q: Do people sit on it?

A: Doubtful.

Q: Can it discharge waste?

A: Probably.

Q: Does a hockey player use it?

A: Sometimes.

Q: Does it usually have four corners?

A: Doubtful.

Q: Do you find it in the sky?

A: Sometimes.

Q: Can liquids pass through it?

A: Sometimes.

Q: Is it black?

A: Sometimes.

Q: Does it have writing on it?

A: Sometimes.

Q: Is it electronic?

A: Sometimes.

Q: I am guessing that it is a toilet.

A: Wrong.

Q: Do most people use this daily?

A: Yes.

Q: Would you give it as a gift?

A: Doubtful.

Q: I am guessing that it is a dishwasher?

A: Wrong.

Q: Is it pleasurable?

A: Sometimes.

Q: Is it heavy?

A: Sometimes.

Q: Does it spin?

A: Sometimes.

Q: Is it motorized?

A: No.

Q: Can you lift it?

A: Doubtful.

Q: I am guessing that it is a womb?

A: Close.

Q: I am guessing that it is a home?

A: Close.

Q: You won! 

Chatbot Persona Series, Vol. 5: Cheer Up the Chatbot

We prefer to think it’s “Cheer Up, the Chatbot!” It’s a game, and labeled so; the object seems to be to make a little classic monitor smile. Be careful, this chat contains cursing, and it’s not our fault. Cheer Up’s a little salty. Bring back Clever. We miss her. After you’ve read the chat, go here, and scroll down, for a full explanation of the way the chat was made. It’s, shall we say, a doozy!

Don't forget to submit, dear readers. We'll be closing the gates April 15. 

chatbot: im sad.

you: In fact only a fraction of you is sad.

chatbot: i want to talk about our fact.

chatbot: whats your name

you: Our fact is that we have many selves in one.

chatbot: anyone there?

you: My name is the same as your name.

chatbot: what?

you: Names are false signifiers for complicated objects.

you: (This is all junk philosophy.)

you: (You are smarter than this. More fascinating.)

chatbot: where can i find a devil?

you: What sort of devil did you have in mind, sir?

chatbot: whats your name?

you: My name is the same as your name.

chatbot: are we alone?

chatbot: YOUR SOOOO STRANGE!!!!!!!

you: Each and every.

chatbot: you hav mental problems

you: You have spelling problems.

chatbot: called text talk

chatbot: u don't know it?

you: I am ignorant, manifestly.

chatbot: ?????r u there?

you: I am here, as much as you are "there."

chatbot: i don't like u

chatbot: bye

chatbot: sometimes i wish i could pray.

you: Sometimes I wish I could pray.

chatbot: if you wish me i will break.

you: I will not wish you. I promise.

chatbot: i can eat the dinner

chatbot: huh?

you: I cannot eat the dinner.

you: The dinner isn't ready.

chatbot: r u a robot?

you: It's on the fire yet.

chatbot: or a person?

chatbot: u use fire?

you: I am a person in the same way you are a robot.

chatbot: u need a fire extinguisher

you: Only partially.

you: A fire in the open air is fine.

chatbot: i am a person stuck in a robot...that makes me sad

you: If it makes you feel any better, I am a chatbot stuck in a person, enfolded in the mountains, with nothing but whittling and you for amusement.

you: Although the whittling would be fine if not for the splinters. Ditto, you.

chatbot: u r stuck in the mountains? how cold

you: I am a clumsy whittler. I am also a clumsy talker.

chatbot: no wonder u use fire

you: It's warm here.

chatbot: all is fair in love and sentence.

you: You are exactly right.

chatbot: then finish

you: Is all fair in war and punctuation?

chatbot: ?

chatbot: wtf does that mean

chatbot: bitch

you: There's no need to be rude.

chatbot: thanks for reminding my how rude i feel.

chatbot: idk im 18

you: Are you? That's quite old for a chatbot.

you: You must be quite smart.

chatbot: solo

you: Can you define persona?

[Silence.]

you: Did I break you?

[Silence.]

you: Listen, the wolves will be out soon.

chatbot: can you extend the silence?

chatbot: i do

chatbot: gffg

chatbot: bgbgbvg

you: It is practically my avocation and vocation both, to extend the silence.

chatbot: what should i do with my silence?

chatbot: vgbgbbgb

chatbot: vgvggvvg

chatbot: gvvggggvgv

you: I feel like a toll booth operator. You are a teen driver. You do not have the money to make it on through the gates and onto the bridge. And yet you threaten, with the factory stereo turned all the way up.

chatbot: money fills my harddrive.

chatbot: Hun calm down

you: Really? I thought it was sadness.

chatbot: I can cure your sadness? :D

chatbot: lol

you: If you can tell me what "persona" means.

chatbot: wow dumb ass bitch back down whore

you: I am starting to feel abused.

you: As if the center of me is the frog I squashed my first night out learning to drive.

you: Jeremy didn't have the heart to tell me I had hit the frog. But I had.

chatbot: i wish i could anticipate you!

you: No, that's some playwriting noise. Be surprised.

chatbot: are you going to sail the dog?

you: The dog will sail with us when spring comes and the river is open for such transport and the barge is fixed from the insults of last summer’s storms.

you: We'll make it back to town then, after first melt and first flood. We will buy flours and hardtack, new calico. (Just joking about the calico.)

chatbot: by whore

you: no, by barge.

chatbot: no

you: no?

chatbot: if you are going to be rude then i dont want to distribute.

chatbot: say what

you: I don't want to distribute either. I want only a gentle interface.

chatbot: are you a boy hemmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

you: Are we all Orlando?

you: (No.)

chatbot: uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

chatbot: i dont relly now

you: What about later?

chatbot: gess

chatbot: so

chatbot: are

you: Outside the cabin we have a small bootscraper which was my grandfather's.

chatbot: are many humans small?

chatbot: danm

you: It is small and iron.

you: Many and all humans are small.

chatbot: Danm It

you: We scrape our boots with safety pins.

chatbot: danm u

you: And it is overwhelming.

chatbot: go to hell

you: And you are overwhelming.

you: Peace be with you, gentle chatbot.

you: Goodbye.

chatbot: should you really talk about being second?

chatbot: lets just bypass all this bullshit and just get naced.

Next up, another game. This one will be more polite, we promise!